


All Heaven in a Rage

by TentacleBubbles



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Accidentally Joining A Rebel Group, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Dystopian Future, Gen, Heist, MINOR DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE, Nekoma's here too, Nohebi-centric, Technobabble, The Rest of Nohebi, eat the rich, implied found family, its a Heist for the People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TentacleBubbles/pseuds/TentacleBubbles
Summary: Best friends Kuguri and Seguro enter a life of crime after a misguided attempt to help out a damsel in distress. Except crime is a euphemism for stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. May or may not involve a little murder and actual crime, but beggars and rebels can’t be choosers.ORA Nohebi Cyberpunk AU with a side of friendship, rebellion, and taking care of your own.
Relationships: Kuguri Naoyasu & Seguro Akihiko
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	All Heaven in a Rage

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the 2020 Cyberpunk Haikyuu Bang!! It was great fun writing this, and a challenge as well hahah Thanks so much to my awesome artists, gizzy and lily! You can find them on [geechapon](https://www.instagram.com/geechapon/) and [chocceler](https://www.instagram.com/chocceler/) respectively!!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!

The light caught on the hanging glass, throwing impressions of rainbows across the room. The glass walls of the café added to the peaceful morning atmosphere. People lounged about with their fancy drinks and fancier phones, barely looking up even when they had companions with them.

Outside the café, tables with self-adjusting umbrellas were set up, their table screens showing an array of food and drinks to any passer-by that came close enough to see the advertisement. One table was quiet, though. It was situated on the far side of the sidewalk, almost slipping into the alleyway beside the café.

Sitting at that table was a lone figure, smart outfit blending in with the morning crowd. The table before them was sparse, nothing but a single black coffee and a wad of napkins. They sat with their back to the alley.

“Sunny morning, isn’t it?” Came a voice from behind them, a shadow in the alley.

The figure at the table didn’t acknowledge them, drank their coffee in silence. They took the wad of napkins and dabbed at the corner of their lips. Then, in a casual but swift move, they crumpled up the napkins and threw it behind them into the alleyway.

The shadow disappeared with a murmured, “Thanks.”

Across the street, a pair of men in distinct, sharp, bright blue uniform eyed the alleyway through their visors. They eyed the figure at the café table as well, but said figure had already disappeared. A café bot had even come out to collect the coffee cup they left.

The officers entered the alleyway, hands on the suppressors at their hip. They followed the path out into another street with its own thinning throng of people. They were about to give up on their suspicions when they spotted her.

A woman with long dark hair and a chunky tote bag. She was in a bright old age dress, too obviously stiff cotton even under the layers of shimmer silk and the large vintage sunhat. It was beggar’s clothing, compared to everyone else’s easy to repurpose clothing after corporations had to find a way to keep up with the fast fashion industry.

Rigid structures like her dress immediately put the two officers on alert. They approached her purposefully, intercepting her path towards a downtown novelty diner. One of the officers began questioning her while the other began calling for backup.

It wasn’t every day that the City Enforcement Officers would find a suspected criminal in the middle of the Urban District. It used to happen all the time, but it was so long ago that people had already mostly forgotten. People paused to gawk, some curious enough to take a photo or two to share with their friends.

“I’m just shopping, Officers,” the woman said in a loud and calm voice. She didn’t appear afraid nor nervous at all. They stood to the side of the street, just enough that they wouldn’t block the entrance to the diner she’d been trying to get into.

It was then that two particular young men exited the club. These two men were Seguro Akihiko and Kuguri Naoyasu. They never would have come across the woman and the two officers, usually. They often stayed at the diner late into the day, until they could go to their classes in the afternoon.

But today, Seguro had forgotten to bring his phone with him. A rare occurrence, and one that Kuguri teased him about mercilessly. So they left the diner to go back for it. They saw the officer grab the woman’s arm, tearing at her shimmer silk shawl with their heavy, claw-tipped gloves.

Seguro paused, lips pursed and brows furrowed at the scene. Beside him, Kuguri sighed, slipping his hand in his pocket to turn off his phone. Plausible deniability, after all.

\---

Yamaka Mika, code-name Witch, opened the door with a flourish, tearing off some of the layers of ripped shimmer silk still clinging to her.

She directed her two companions towards the couch, watching with amusement as their faces crumpled at the sight of it. It wasn’t even that old, and Daishou just washed it last week.

That’s what they get for that idiot move they pulled. It was never too late to learn about life consequences, Mika should think so.

“All right,” she addressed them, slipping on a comfy, beat up jacket hanging in the hallway closet as she did. “Just let me do the talking this time. Lamia will explain the mess you boys got yourselves into.”

The two boys looked just a tad more uncomfortable, but that wasn’t her fault. They were the ones who wanted to play hero. She began sorting through her bag, checking to see if she’d dropped anything in the earlier chase. Thankfully she got a bag that had working zippers, though she wasn’t able to close them completely back then.

Just as she was finishing her inventory check, Daishou came down the stairs, squinting at the scene before him. Mika did her best to look innocent despite the very obvious pair of strangers on the couch.

“Witch,” Daishou said slowly, eyes on the couch and its increasingly anxious occupants. “Whatcha got there?”

“A bunch of souvenirs for the gang,” Mika answered sweetly, patting her bag. “And the info you wanted.”

Daishou frowned, finally turning to look at her. “Have we been compromised?”

Mika pouted.

“Obviously not,” she said. “Got rid of the one phone they had between them. In any case, the snitches probably have their faces blacklisted by now.”

She clasped her hands with a mock pleading face. “Suguru-chan, they don’t have anywhere else to go.”

It was Daishou’s turn to scoff.

“Okay so what really happened?” he asked, crossing his arms.

“A couple of snitches tagged me,” Mika explained easily, dropping her hands and her act. “I was getting ready to run for it when these two good boys decided to try and defend me. It was cute, if unnecessary, so of course I couldn’t just abandon them to the dogs when I made my escape.”

Daishou sighed, unable or unwilling to find fault in Mika’s logic. Just like she knew he would.

“It’s okay, they’re good boys,” Mika assured him, turning to their two guests. “Aren’t you?”

One blinked blankly at her, while the other frowned in obvious suspicion.

“See?” Mika looked back at Daishou, unfazed. “In any case, they’ve seen too much. Might as well go all the way.”

Daishou sighed again.

“Is Witch back?” Sakishima appeared at the top of the stairs, his freckled face showing hints of amusement. “Ohoh? Brought in some strays, did you?”

“Bought what you asked for, too,” Mika said, making her way towards him while rooting through her bag. Sakishima met her halfway down the stairs, accepting the uneven bundle wrapped in old, crinkly papers. Mika asked him about his latest project and he indulged her with enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, Daishou was giving Kuguri and Seguro a careful once over.

“What exactly do you two know?” he asked, frowning at them. “Do you know where you are? Who you’re with?”

Another disinterested blink, from the redhead with unkempt hair and a sleepy face. An even deeper frown from the other one, with shorter hair and a dirtied sports jacket.

“You’re Myths, aren’t you?” Surprisingly, it was the redhead who spoke first. His friend’s frown was replaced with surprise, and they exchanged an odd look before the friend rounded in on Daishou.

“You’re a bunch of terrorists?” he asked, sounding far too self-righteous about it.

Daishou grinned, sharp and just wide enough to bother them.

“That’s what your government insists,” he agreed. “Our side came up with the Myths but they sure ran with it, didn’t they? What are they accusing us of these days? Mass kidnappings? Assassinations?”

“Destruction of property and petty theft,” Sakishima added, interrupting his own conversation with Mika. She looked at Daishou with a pout, as if he was the one who interrupted them.

“Nah, those two are true,” Daishou said with a shrug. He turned back to their guests, one still feigning disinterest while the other had moved on to fuming.

“Are you saying you’re not all criminals?” the fuming one demanded, earning a laugh from both Daishou and Sakishima. Mika, to her credit, held back her amusement some.

“We’re definitely criminals,” she told them, unapologetic. “Don’t worry, you are now, too.”

Redhead’s eyebrows rose, while Fuming leveled up to Indignant Sputtering.

“I don’t think we’re getting through to them,” Sakishima observed dryly. “Want me to go get the Werewolf? He’s better with this type of thing.”

“Might as well,” Daishou agreed with a shooing gesture. Sakishima stuck his tongue out at him but obligingly went back upstairs, the mysterious bundle cradled in his arms. Mika rolled her eyes at them and followed him up, hopefully to set up the meeting room. Or maybe she just wanted to go to her room, Daishou wouldn’t put it past her to make him deal with everything.

“All right.” he turned towards the two left on the couch. “You don’t have to tell me your names if you don’t want to, but we will find out eventually. We’re not going to hurt you unless you hurt us first, but after that all bets are off. Are we clear?”

Redhead and Hothead exchange a glance before giving him a tense nod. Huh, they really are good boys, as Mika put it. Wonder how long that’ll last with _this_ company.

“Good.” Daishou nodded back. “ The name’s Daishou, but you may call me Lamia. Now’s the chance to tell me your names before I find out for myself.”

“No,” Hothead said immediately, arms crossed and oozing mistrust. His friend shrugged listlessly, as if he was just following Hothead’s lead.

Ah well, if Numai can’t get it out of them then Sakishima will run a search. Really, so much trouble just for their names.

Numai came down in short order, Hiroo following after him with an old age laptop under his arm. It was the type that was still solid and only folded once, with noticeable weight to boot. It was also Numai and Hiroo’s freaky Frankenstein lovechild, because it was the only thing they seemed to ever agree on. They wouldn’t let anybody else touch it and made modifications to it on the regular.

“Updated your presentation, did you?” Daishou guessed, noting the excited way Numai bounded down the steps. He outright ignored Daishou and beelined for the newbies, letting his intimidating frame do half the talking.

“Been a while since we got to use it,” Hiroo said, sidling up to Daishou with a half-lidded, judging gaze. “Did you do the name thing again?”

Daishou bristled. “No.”

“If you didn’t make such a big deal out of it, they wouldn’t try to hide it,” Hiroo told him, not for the first time. Daishou pretended not to hear him, also not for the first time.

“I’m gonna prep the meeting room,” Daishou said instead, leaving them to it. At the very least, those two would make sure their newbies won’t run away at the first opportunity.

Daishou found Mika in the meeting room, lounging in one of the seats with her feet up on the large table with a screen built onto its surface. Her bag was hanging on the chair next to her, its contents spilled on the tabletop. She smiled up at him when he walked in, holding up the toy she was fiddling with as a greeting.

It was an oddly shaped puzzle that might’ve started out as a cube. If Daishou remembered correctly, those were banned after a gang of Myths made a big deal of hiding messages in them and the authorities caught wind of it.

He grunted a greeting at her and started laying out the things she’d gotten on her shopping trip. Most of them were miscellaneous items, things like spare parts for Akama’s little robots, a book on home agriculture for Takachiho, a couple wads of crumpled up napkins, four packs of chewing gum and some throwing knives for whoever got to them first. Naturally, Daishou swiped one for himself.

A few minutes later, Sakishima joined them in the room. He also nabbed a knife for himself before sorting through the rest. Amongst the wad of napkins was the thumb drive they were actually looking for, and the point of the whole meeting.

Sakishima carefully pried the casing open, revealing another, smaller thumb drive underneath. He didn’t waste any time plugging it into the console built into the table. The screen lit up with files of information waiting to be sorted through.

If the information that Mika got was right, then they’d be able to hit one of the surplus food banks that the government kept locked up, despite not having any use for it. It’d be one of the bigger heists they were going to pull off, so much so that they had to work with Nekoma to properly drop everything under the radar.

Frankly speaking, Daishou wasn’t looking forward to it before Mika brought home the strays.

“So,” Sakishima said, “it looks like we’ll need all hands on deck for this one. The warehouse is big, and we won’t have time to sort through all of it before the dogs notice. Good news is that it’s old enough that the security is as lax as it can get. Minimal number of security bots, not even a centralized AI. As long as we can separate the warehouse from the City’s power source, we have a good few hours to haul everything out.”

“Nekoma has the same info, right?” Daishou asked, scrunching his nose like he smelled something unpleasant. “Why’d it have to be close to their territory? Couldn’t we have gotten Fukurodani? Hell, I’d even take that Karasuno Myth gaining power up North.”

“Daishou, that’s too far north to be in our territory,” Mika pointed out. Daishou, their mature and fearless leader, stuck his tongue out at her. She stuck her tongue out right back at him.

“There’s not much use going through this in too much depth,” Sakishima continued, ignoring the two. “Since we have to make a game plan with Nekoma anyway. It’d be better if we decide on the strays first.”

“Ah, yes,” Mika said, looking up with shining eyes. “Do you think Numai and Hiroo are done with them? Should we have lunch first? They really are good kids, I want to give them a good welcome!”

“Mika-chan,” Sakishima said, brows furrowed.

“Yes, Saki-chan?” Mika asked innocently.

“What really happened?” Sakishima leveled her with a knowing look, making Mika sigh.

“Okay, so they were trying to deescalate the whole thing and get the snitches to leave me alone,” Mika explained, fiddling with her puzzle. “But you know how the snitches are — they never want to deescalate. Mr. Short fuse decided to throw a punch and then his friend jumped the other guy like he was following his lead.”

She looked up then, an excited smile on her face.

“They knocked the dogs out in five minutes flat,” she said, earning an incredulous laugh from her audience of two. “By then we had witnesses and I couldn’t just leave them there.”

Finally, she shrugged, leaning back in her seat. “Every time we manage to recruit sheltered rich kids, we get a bit more info and awareness out there, in any case.”

Sakishima scrunched his nose in distaste, having been one of those sheltered rich kids in the past. He didn’t think he was that impulsive and naive, was he?

Then again, he was part of a notorious rebel gang more or less labeled a terrorist group now. He supposed that put things in perspective.

\---

Kuguri and Seguro couldn’t be any more different from each other.

Seguro was loud and brash and passionate, with a strong sense of justice. Kuguri knew his friend very well, especially because he was the opposite. He didn’t like getting too much attention, nor was he one to give much effort to anything he did.

But they’ve been friends since middle school, and Kuguri had been keeping his friend out of serious trouble for just as long. It wasn’t easy, Kuguri was only human.

He looked over at his friend, watching him silently go through his existential crisis on the couch they’d been parked in for most of the day. He wasn’t surprised, this was all news to Seguro, after all.

Kuguri, on the other hand, was a little too smart for his age, a lot of people had told him so. 

He was certainly smart enough to have realized life wasn’t as comfortable and conveniently black and white as they’d been taught all their lives. He’d noticed the dissonance but never had enough pieces to get to a proper conclusion. The best he could do with the information he had was keep himself and his friend out of trouble, keep their records clean so that they could continue with their lives.

Sometimes, he wished for more information, for a clearer picture of what he was dealing with. A part of him knew that the answers he wanted was just a little more intensive research away. He just didn’t want to waste his efforts when he could be doing other things. He kept putting it off. He was lazy, that’s all.

But Kuguri had to face reality now. How could he not, when the clear picture he’d been avoiding was just presented to them in a comprehensive Powerpoint presentation?

He had to admit to himself that he’d just been scared to know. Because if he knew, he wouldn’t be able to keep it from Seguro, and if Seguro knew… well.

Kuguri pulled himself out of his thoughts, focusing on his friend again. He looked about done with his existential crisis and was coming to a decision.

“Kuguri,” Seguro said, his frown less confused and more set now. “This is bad.”

Kuguri raised a brow, waiting for him to clarify.

“What they said,” Seguro gestured with a huff. “Those guys, if what they said is true, it’s bad.”

“It’s true,” Kuguri said with a sigh. Seguro’s frown deepened.

“How do you know?”

Kuguri shrugged.

“There are better programs to fabricate information with,” he said. “Who even uses Powerpoint nowadays?”

Seguro let out a startled laugh. Kuguri’s lips curled up in a slight smile, but they both sobered up pretty quickly.

“We have to help,” Seguro said. “I can’t… you know I can’t pretend not to know all of this.”

“I know.” Kuguri nodded, eyes shifting downward. He couldn’t match his friend’s determination, even if he tried.

“They could still decide to kick us out,” he reminded Seguro, jutting his chin in the direction of the stairs, up where they were having some sort of secret gang meeting.

It was weird that they didn’t even leave anyone to guard them. Seguro must’ve looked dazed enough after their presentation that they didn’t think the two would run away anytime soon.

“I know.” Seguro deflated, then quickly sat up again. “But I have to try. If they won’t let me join, I’ll find some other Myths.”

Kuguri really wished he wouldn’t. If this Nohebi group did decide they couldn’t let them stay, they’d have to live as fugitives. Kuguri would have to put his half of an Electronics and Cyberspace degree to use and make fake identities for them or something.

That’s so tiresome. He didn’t want to do it.

“I’ll follow you,” he said anyway, because he wasn’t ever going to abandon Seguro.

It would still be better if Nohebi let them stay, though. Maybe he could remind them that as the ones who gave them the red pill, as it were, he and Seguro were Nohebi’s responsibility now.

“Kuguri-chan! Seguro-chan!”

The two of them looked up at the call, finding the woman named Mika heading down the stairs and waving at them.

“Great news! We’ve decided to let you guys in on a little test run,” she announced, walking up to them with a smile. “See, we’re going to be liberating some food stores from this warehouse that’s been collecting dust for upwards of a decade, and we need an extra hand.”

Kuguri snuck a glance at Seguro, whose eyes were already shining with compassion and interest.

“One of you can stay with Saki-chan and see how we operate,” Mika continued. “Then you can see what we do and decide if you want in.”

“I want in,” Seguro said almost immediately. Knowing him, Kuguri guessed that he barely heard her past ‘let you guys in’ and was just waiting for her to finish speaking out of politeness.

Mika’s smile turned funny, but she nodded, turning to look at Kuguri.

“And you?” she asked.

“Guess I’ll stay here,” he said.

“Great, that’s settled.” Mika nodded again. “We’re going to have a meeting with another group of Myths tomorrow, but for now, how about we introduce you guys to everybody?”

Seguro was just as on board with this, saying something about getting along with future team mates. Kuguri, meanwhile, was second guessing his decisions. He didn’t know joining a rebel group included _introductions_.

\---

“And you’re all set,” Sakishima said, patting Daishou in the back extra hard for good luck. Daishou gave him a scathing look, punctuated by a rude hand gesture that he did his best to hide from Mika.

Unfortunately, Mika looked up from her bag just at that moment and gave the both of them a disappointed look.

“Really now,” Hiroo drawled, smug. “We’re all mature adults here. Mature adults who better head out or they’ll be late to the mature adults meeting.”

Daishou was still giving Sakishima a narrow-eyed look, which Sakishima answered with a shit eating grin.

“Numai’s in charge while I’m gone,” Daishou said decisively. Sakishima’s grin fell, and he stuck his tongue out at him.

“I’m eating your chips.”

“Try it.”

“Come on,” Mika began pulled Daishou into the garage. “We’re gonna be late and then we’ll never hear the end of it.”

That got Daishou moving, as she knew it would. Sakishima followed them as far as the door, watching them pile into the car. It was an old jeep remodeled and renovated to fit modern regulations, to blend in with most of the cars out there. Not that they wouldn’t be avoiding surveillance anyway.

“Say hi to Kozume-san for me,” Sakishima said, smiling again when the name made Daishou’s brows furrow.

“Since when have you been friendly with Nekoma’s Calico?” he asked.

“Since none of your business,” Sakishima answered casually. “Don’t get caught by snitches.”

“Don’t burn down the house!” Mika said cheerfully, waving from her seat.

Hiroo nodded silently at them as he rolled the tinted windows up and started the car.

Sakishima was the one to open the garage door, and he watched them drive away for a while before closing it again. That done, he decided to check on the house’s security before finding himself a snack.

Upon checking the security cameras around the house, Sakishima was reminded of their two new recruits.

At the moment, Numai and Akama were leading them through some rush training. They weren’t so cruel as to let the newbies go out there without _any_ training, after all. So Numai and Akama volunteered to show them at least a few moves to protect themselves with.

Sakishima snorted, watching them spar through the security cameras.

Well, one of them. The guy with the red hair, Kuguri, was just sitting in the corner watching as Numai and Akama tossed his friend around. Strange kid, that Kuguri.

Sakishima had tagged him as shy, at first. Maybe calculative, in his own unpolished way. His friend Seguro was much more open and naive, with a glaringly bright sense of justice like vintage neon signs above his head.

Numai even said that he was surprised the kid wasn’t on his way to becoming a brainwashed snitch himself. Sakishima had a growing suspicion that Kuguri had a lot to do with his friend remaining refreshingly innocent.

“How’re they doing? Want some?”

Sakishima looked up to find Takachiho had joined him, holding out a bag of chips that definitely had Daishou’s name on it.

Sakishima wasn’t actually serious about nabbing Daishou’s stuff, because he knew the guy would retaliate. But Takachiho was their resident healer — the only one of them with any concrete knowledge on medicine past first aid and an almost-PhD. Even if he wasn’t, Daishou was weak to the bastard just like he was weak to his Mika-chan.

Daishou hadn’t noticed it yet, and it was none of Sakishima’s business.

Sakishima grinned and grabbed a handful of chips, shifting to the side to give Takachiho room to sit.

“Kid’s sus,” Sakishima said through a mouthful of chips and a vague gesture towards the screens.

“Which one?” Takachiho asked, peering at the screen eagerly and acting as if he wasn’t hiding behind everyone else when they did a round of introductions last night. Their gang really was full of the crafty ones, wasn’t it?

“Bed hair.” Sakishima reached for more chips, fewer this time.

“Good sus or bad sus?”

“Remains to be seen,” Sakishima said with a shrug. That did remind him that he wanted to test the kid’s computer skills, if he volunteered to stay behind with him like Mika said.

Takachiho hummed. “What about the other one?” he asked.

“Oh that one’s a good kid, like Mika said,” Sakishima answered. “Level head, nice reflexes. Numai’s outright charmed. We’ll see if he can handle the field test, though.”

“Of course.” Takachiho smiled, knowing exactly what he meant. Wasn’t that the kicker?

Maybe it was for the best that Sakishima was in charge of Kuguri in their upcoming job.

\---

The mission was this:

Nekoma and Nohebi were to combine their forces and divide them into three teams.

First, the Security Team made up of the combined efforts of Sakishima and Kuguri from Nohebi, Calico and Puma from Nekoma were going to isolate the warehouse’s internal security and block the government’s national AI from interfering.

One side will take care of keeping the exits open and frying any tracking devices that could be hiding amongst the supplies while the other side will play keep away with the guards and whatever internal security got left online.

While they’re doing that, the Infiltration Team, composed of three people from Nohebi and three from Nekoma, would have about five hours to get rid of whoever else was left inside. They couldn’t have any witnesses.

Then, it was time to begin transporting the goods from the warehouse to the four cars with the Retrieval Team.

From there, they were going to use the abandoned lower districts that surrounded the warehouse to get away from any pursuers before regrouping further away. What happened to the supplies they retrieved, that would be discussed later.

“What’s most important is to retrieve all that we can first,” Sakishima concluded, watching for Kuguri’s reaction. But the latter merely nodded, most of his attention on the various screens in front of him.

Sakishima pouted. This ungrateful little brat, all he really cared about was his friend. Seguro was currently with Akama and Takachiho in the Retrieval team, along with three guys from Nekoma. Kuguri’s eyes were very obviously tracking his friend’s progress on their way to the warehouse in one of the screens.

“In any case, we’re in charge of the exits,” Sakishima continued, handing Kuguri a headset. “Remember, code names only, though yours and Giant’s are still probational. We can change it depending on how this operation goes.”

Kuguri’s face became pinched, putting Sakishima in a better mood. If he kept that up, Kuguri would really be stuck with ‘Angel.’

Getting him to react to anything was a challenge, one that their gang very quickly picked up on. And by ‘picked up on’ he meant ‘absolutely tease the hell out of.’

-

“All right,” Sakishima turned to face the screens as well. “Time to fuck up some AI’s day.”

They’d done the operation enough times that Sakishima easily did his part, not even needing Kuguri’s help with the codes.

He directed the kid to watch the hacked cameras while he and Kozume worked to put up as many firewalls as they could, with a bunch of other toys and nasty surprises they can fit into the warehouse’s mainframe without outright crashing it and triggering the reset system.

They were just about finished when the Infiltration and Retrieval Teams rolled up at the warehouse entrance.

So far so good.

They had a pretty big margin for error, all things considered. Five hours was plenty, even if it got cut they had enough manpower to take a sizable amount back home and torch the rest with the authorities none the wiser.

It’d be a shame to lose all those supplies if that happened, but there wouldn’t be any other chance to get them after this.

So Sakishima paid attention to the exits and hoped it won’t go to shit too soon.

\---

Kuguri was sure someone else would’ve noticed it eventually.

There were twice as many security bots patrolling the area wasn’t anywhere in the information they got — there must’ve been a mistake somewhere, or they added the bots after the information was taken, it didn’t really matter now.

What mattered was that Kuguri was counting too many bots passing by on their already altered patrol route and nobody was taking care of it. He checked the cameras — they were still moving crates in the formation meant for half the bots they actually had to deal with.

Unlike the warehouse’s isolated system, the bots can still send an emergency signal to the nearest Enforcement Office if they were damaged or forcefully shut off. That’s why they only redirected their patrol routes, making it wider and longer.

With this many bots though, it won’t be long before they got discovered.

Kuguri tried to get Sakishima’s attention, but he was still working with Hiroo to get rid of the trackers amongst the supplies. He couldn’t distract Calico and Puma either. He waited a minute, three, to see if anyone would notice.

When nobody did, Kuguri sighed and got to work. His two years worth of a degree better be worth something now.

First, he couldn’t do anything about their routes — no time to tell anyone about the change. Making them go offline or self-destruct was out, too. Even in theories class, they’ve yet to find a way to tamper with the bots without sending a notification.

Kuguri realized two things at that moment. One, that theories class was the government being sneaky assholes using free labor to test their own security that killed people on the regular. And two, they did find a way to stop the notifications.

It was just a very long string of looping codes that made the bots freeze up and keep them thinking they’re still going through their usual route. What’s more, it wasn’t tampering with the bots, oh no. It was tampering with the local control system that was in charge of them.

It was a bitch to do remotely, too.

“I need to do something,” Kuguri spoke into his headset, and with no other warning started to work.

Sakishima made a noise of alarm beside him, and Calico and Puma began asking questions. It got distracting enough that Kuguri spoke out again.

“Too many bots,” he grunted. “I’m dealing with it.”

On the other side of their communications line, Daishou and Black started asking for a status report, which Kuguri ignored. He was aware that Sakishima was giving him a look while he tried to answer them, but Kuguri didn’t really care.

They can’t be caught. 

He’d rather not think about them being caught. 

He’d rather not think about the possibility of Seguro being gunned down by robots like those videos he’d seen, in Numai’s Powerpoint and all those times he came across them and ignored them before. 

He’d always protected Seguro before, he wasn’t about to fail this time.

“Ku - Angel?”

It was Seguro’s voice that broke Kuguri’s concentration enough for him to remember that he wasn’t by himself at the moment. 

Right. They were with Nohebi. They were Myths. Sakishima was still looking at him, and he couldn't do that when he had to cover the exits.

“There’s more bots than we were told,” he said, still tidying up the stupid string of code. It’s too long, even a single thing out of place would make it collapse. “I’m just getting rid of them.”

“Oh, all right,” Seguro accepted, because it was Seguro and he trusted Kuguri far more than he really should.

Somehow, his easy acceptance made the others quiet down, cautiously going back to what they were doing. Sakishima was still watching, but this time his attention was on Kuguri’s work _and_ some of the exits.

Once Kuguri was done, though, the change was obvious.

“Holy shit,” Sakishima exclaimed, grabbing the screen Kuguri was working on and physically bringing his face close enough to it that Kuguri’s eyes hurt just watching him.

“Huh,” Calico said over the comms, sounding mildly impressed. Kuguri blushed despite himself.

“Rerouting the commands? Remotely, too!” Puma said, definitely impressed. “Nice work, Angel.”

Kuguri grunted, embarrassed. He didn’t even know these people.

“Good work, Angel,” came Daishou’s voice. “But we still only have a few hours. Let’s hurry up.”

Everyone went back to work, not that they ever actually stopped, but now Sakishima was giving him calculative looks and Kuguri didn’t like it. He’s had the same looks from his professors whenever he slipped up and got higher scores than usual. Like they wanted to mentor him.

Ugh.

Kuguri kept his head down and pretended not to see it. Some time later, though, Sakishima casually muted himself from the communication line.

“You know,” Sakishima said, keeping his eyes on the cameras. “If you guys proved to be flakes, we were going to have to kill you because you knew too much.”

“I know,” Kuguri said quietly. And he did. Nohebi was nice enough, taking them in, but they made it obvious that they had to prove themselves if they wanted to stay.

They were almost done clearing the place out, with an hour to spare, which meant he had to be more attentive. This was usually when things had the highest chance of fucking up.

“Huh.” Sakishima looked even more impressed and calculative, somehow.

Again, Kuguri pretended not to see.

\---

Seguro was always calmest in the middle of a fight.

He never told Kuguri this, though his best friend probably already knew it. Normally, he always felt a little too easily distracted. He had to try his best to pay attention when he wasn’t interested in something. If it took too long, he lost interest anyway.

But not in a fight, no. He didn’t purposefully seek them out, and he never got into any big ones. That was partly Kuguri covering for him — as if he couldn’t tell — and partly because he never let them get big.

Not this big, at least.

This mattered more, so much more than any other fight he’d been through. Not that it was anything like those fights. He’d never had to steal supplies from a government warehouse before. A private one, just sitting there for years while so many people starved and suffered?

Seguro was the calmest he’s been, because this was the most important fight he’s joined in his short life. Maybe that’s why he noticed it.

A security guard, peering from behind one of the bigger crates they’ve yet to get out of the warehouse. He had a limp arm, covered in blood and still bleeding. His head was bleeding too, it looked like. He was facing away from him.

Seguro knew they had to get rid of witnesses, but that was the Infiltration Team’s job. How did this one escape? None of their team got injured or anything. Was it Nekoma?

He had no time to find out, because the guard was raising his good arm, gun in hand. He was aiming at one of the people from Nekoma — Seguro remembered he introduced himself as Dane, like the dog.

Seguro lunged.

One, two. It was a quick, sharp jerk of his hands and arms. Seguro had never been more focused in his life.

“Giant? What was that?”

Kuguri’s voice. Sakishima was saying the same thing. And Daishou as well. Dane was staring at him with shock and a little bit of fear.

Seguro loosened his hold, dropping the body to the floor. Numai taught him how to disarm people yesterday, going through the motions until Seguro could numb a person’s arm from twelve different directions. He’d have to thank him for that.

“He was gonna attack Dane,” Seguro replied after a moment. He got a bit of blood on his shirt from the guy. Damn, he didn’t have a lot of shirts to begin with.

“Giant, where’d you learn to snap a guy’s neck?” Kuguri asked cautiously.

“Youtube,” Seguro answered.

Which was true, he saw a video of it once. In Junior Enforcer Camp in high school, before they all practiced on some synthetic dummies. The first ten people who could twist the neck right and made a cracking sound got a star sticker and a chocolate bar.

Kuguri didn’t need to know any of that, though.

“Well,” Black — Nekoma’s leader, if Seguro remembered right — said, something odd with his voice. “I think the Infiltration Team should do another sweep, just in case.”

“Yeah,” Daishou agreed. “Come on. We should be setting up the flares anyway.”

Dane came up to Seguro, sidestepping the corpse awkwardly.

“Uhm, thanks,” he said, giving Seguro a tentative grin and a pat on the shoulder.

Seguro grinned back, shoulders relaxing. Had he been tense this whole time?

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Dane nodded, brightening.

\---

The mission ended successfully.

They emptied out the warehouse, got home and celebrated by watching the news. They reported the warehouse fire as ‘vandalism’ and took the chance to put their city enforcement officers in the spotlight for ‘being alerted of the fire’ and ‘keeping civilians away’ while the firefighters did the actual work.

They said the warehouse was abandoned.

It left a bad taste in Seguro’s mouth, but that was easily washed away by the orange juice and the knowledge of the truth.

They still had to talk about how they were going to divide the supplies between Nekoma and Nohebi, and then how to distribute it to the lower districts in their respective territories without garnering suspicion. Seguro was looking forward to that, too.

For now, though, they sat with Nohebi in the living room of their house, their base, having dinner. Takachiho and Mika had made the food, giving Seguro and Kuguri bigger portions and insisting it was to officially welcome them to the group. It felt nice.

Seguro kept catching Kuguri staring at him, though, which felt a little less nice. But it was understandable. He _did_ just watch him kill a man. Seguro didn’t like it, but as long as Kuguri didn’t end up scared of him or anything, it was fine. He’ll wait until Kuguri was ready to talk about it.

Kuguri stayed quiet throughout dinner. Then throughout getting ready for bed. They shared the same room as Akama and Takachiho so Seguro wasn’t expecting much, but he was still a little disappointed.

Sometime in the night, Kuguri shook Seguro awake.

“Aki,” Kuguri whispered, using a nickname from way back in elementary. It never failed to wake Seguro up in seconds.

“Yasu?” he asked, blinking in the partial darkness. Kuguri had turned on one of the dim, yellow lamps built into the wall.

“You’re serious about all of this,” Kuguri said, more of a statement than a question. “We’re really doing this.”

“Yeah,” Seguro confirmed. Then he added, “if you don’t want to…”

Kuguri gave him a look, the one that meant ‘too late for that now but you’re my best friend so I won’t hold it against you.’ Seguro huffed, smiling a little.

“Okay,” Kuguri nodded, to himself or to Seguro or to both. “Just wanted to make sure. Goodnight, Aki.”

“Goodnight, Yasu,” Seguro murmured, watching Kuguri turn off the lamp. He listened to him climb back into bed for a bit before going back to sleep himself.

The next day, Kuguri stood at the breakfast table, an open determination on his face that Seguro had rarely seen. He stared Daishou down, the Nohebi leader staring back with raised brows.

“I can get you the location of every warehouse and underground factory and labor farm in the country.”

Seguro grinned at his best friend. They’re really doing this.

END

**Author's Note:**

> My [twitter](https://twitter.com/Tenticorn) if you'd like to drop by! I'll also be linking the art for this fic there so stay tuned!
> 
> Thoughts? :D


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